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Submissions: Write for Friends Journal

Download our flyer of upcoming issues and share it with your meeting!

Friends Journal welcomes articles, poetry, art, photographs, and letters from our readers. We are also helped by your comments and questions. We are an independent magazine serving the entire Religious Society of Friends. Our mission is “to communicate Quaker experience in order to connect and deepen spiritual lives,” which allows for a variety of viewpoints and subject matter. We welcome submissions from Friends and non-Friends alike.

We prefer articles written in a fresh, non-academic style. Friends value an experiential approach to life and religious thought. Our readers particularly value articles on: exploring Friends’ testimonies and beliefs; integrating faith, work and home lives; historical and contemporary Friends; social concerns and actions; and the variety of beliefs across the branches of Friends.

Friends Journal prefers articles with a constructive approach to spiritual seeking. We seek an open, curious and respectful tone even when discussing controversial subjects. We prefer articles rooted in the author’s own experiences of the divine. Submissions should show an awareness of Friends’ ways and concerns, as well as sensitivity to them.

If you have questions about our submissions process or would like to pitch an idea before writing, you can contact Senior Editor Martin Kelley at martink@friendsjournal.org. By submitting to Friends Journal, you acknowledge that you have read and agree to the legal agreement found at http://www.friendsjournal.org/legal.

Departments: Shorter articles (about 1,000 words or less) found toward the back of each issue that focus on one of our current Department categories, including Earthcare, Friends in Business, History, Reflection, Faith and Practice, and Witness. Click through to see the full list.

Feature submissions and upcoming topics:

Feature articles generally run from 1,200 to 2,500 words. Most of our issues are now themed, though we keep two issues a year un-themed in order to highlight extraordinary articles. If your article does not fit one of our upcoming issues, you can submit it as a "General Feature Submission."

We know there's lots of great Quaker writing which doesn't fit any of the topics in our upcoming issues listings. We leave two issues a year "open" to general interest articles that come in. The next of these comes up in February 2016.

Friends may be antiwar but we try to reach out to the humanity of soldiers. How do we relate to military personnel in our families? How do we support troops without supporting war? What kind of counseling can we give returning soldiers with PTSD? How do we confront the continuing use of torture by U.S. military? This month marks the 70th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Submission deadline 5/4/2015.

Reproduction is a central part of the human experience and Friends have strong and diverse opinions on this far-reaching topic. Some experience infertility or struggle to conceive. Assisted reproduction is becoming more common, including in ways that enable LGBT parents to conceive this way. When unplanned pregnancies happen, do Friends clearness processes, either formal or informal, help with decision-making? How do or should Friends plan for pregnancy and/or child-rearing? Are there religious aspects for Friends in the experience of birth? How can meetings support those who are parenting children? How does Quakerism play into a decision by an individual or couple not to raise children? What about adoption, both giving a child for adoption and adopting one into your own family? Submission deadline 6/1/2015.

For this issue, we're looking for smaller, more personal stories, of how Friends live out our spirituality in the world. What does community mean to you on a personal level? How do you interact with Friends at Quaker gatherings and yearly meeting sessions? What's your relationship with other faiths and causes in your hometown? Submission deadline 7/1/2015.

Friends may be small in number but we show up in pop culture quite a bit. Some well-known artists are Quakers. What is it like to be a Quaker celebrity, either in the larger world or within a Friends context? How should we ourselves consume movies and music—are there cautions or limits? And are there ways we can use popular media like YouTube to share the Quaker message more widely? Submission deadline 8/3/2015.

How are Friends addressing issues of poverty in our communities and in the wider world? Are we getting out of our class and race comfort zones to make friendships and alliances with others? We hope to have Friends address concerns like the "New Jim Crow" and the prison-industrial complex and also share stories about how they've crossed boundaries and made a difference. Deadline 09/01/2015.

Get ready, the first primaries for the 2016 U.S. Presidential election are happening. How should Friends engage in the political process? How do we choose who to support—or whether we should opt out all together? Are there historical examples of Friends' participation we can turn to for inspiration?